All legislative attempts to create a national identity card have failed due to tenacious opposition from liberal and conservative politicians alike, who regard the national identity card as the mark of a totalitarian society. It is both a political issue and a practical one, and the idea of federalism is cited as supporting federated (regional) identification. There have been proposals to nationalize ID cards, as currently citizens are identified by a patchwork of documents issued by both the federal government as well as individual state and local governments. There is, however, no official 'national identity card' in the United States, in the sense that there is no federal agency with nationwide jurisdiction that directly issues an identity document to all US citizens for mandatory regular use. The United States passport itself also may serve as identification. In the United States, identity documents are typically the regional state-issued driver's license or identity card, while also the Social Security card (or just the Social Security number) and the United States Passport Card may serve as national identification.
